Alpha Core

Here are some impressions from a swamp called “Hoge Venen” (Hautes Fagnes or High Fens) and a walk we made near Bon-Secours in Belgium (and France).

We went for a short bike tour near Moorfleet (Hamburg). Here are some impressions:

Tom already went to Paradisio with some friends last year, when I couldn’t join. Since then Tom promised to visit the park together with me again, and that’s what we did a few days ago. After his last visit Tom posted quite enthusiastically about how amazing everything was and I really have to agree with it! We had a lovely day with lots of beautiful, friendly, funky and sometimes also a bit scary animals. Read more

Last thursday evening Melanie and me went snowboarding. Some of you will be surprised, because Hamburg is not so very well know for it’s huge mountains and people who visited the area lately also know that it is actually much too warm for snow. But still – we went snowboarding. This was possible in the Snowdome Bispingen, which is an indoor ski slope, where you can go skiing, snowboarding or sledging all year round and in kind of every weather. The piste is about 300 m long and inclines between 9 % and 20 %. For someone who lives close to real mountains that’s of course just a good laugh, but even though I wouldn’t call it too impressive, we enjoyed it big time. As none of us brought a camera, I copied two pictures from the official website to give you an impression. This means of course that unfortunately there are no pictures of us showing all these great stunts…

(Source of the pictures)

Last weekends fantastic weather was more than enough reason for us to spend a day at the Elbe River in Hamburg. We took the subway to ‘Landungsbrücken‘ and changed there into a ferry boat to get to our final destination. In Hamburg you just need to have a normal subway ticket to be able to use the ferry boats for free (not to be mixed up with harbor tour boats!). Our original plan was to go for a walk at the Elbe beach, but as Tom hadn’t seen the famous Hamburg Beach Clubs before, we decided to check some of those out. Beach Clubs are something really popular in Hamburg, which explains why we have at least seven of them. We visited ‘Hamburg del mar‘, ‘Lago Bay‘ and ‘Hamburg City Beach Club‘, but in other areas of Hamburg you can also find ‘Strand Pauli‘, ‘Central Park‘, ‘Strandkai‘ and ‘Veritas Beach‘. All of them have something special to offer, so everybody could find one he or she likes. To get a proper first impression Tom and me spent some time in the three neighboring Clubs and we can’t even say, which is the one to be recommended most.

Some time ago I went with some friends (Guy and Joris) to a zoo, called Paradisio (in Belgium). The good thing about this one is that many animals there (not all unfortunately) are being kept in rather big pens or even open territories and as such, aren’t crammed into tight little cages as all too often happens in zoos.

As an example of just one of these territories, there’s e.g. a complete island surrounded by water – just some bridges connect to it – on which ring-tailed lemurs live freely. When they feel like, they can come to fool around with the passing visitors or just hide in the dense vegetation.

What was one of the most breathtaking events was the bird show: eagles, vultures, owls, etc. are flying above the heads of the audience. The best was when a huge vulture was flying directly towards me and over my head, so close that I could’ve touched it if I wanted – probably would’ve bumped my head if I didn’t duck down, not very sure. If you ever wanted to see a bird show and didn’t do so yet, then go to this one, it’s really amazing! Read more

Two weeks ago we went to visit Alain and Wendy in Liempde (in The Netherlands). This visit was already postponed far too much and it was great to finally see them again.

Here’s also a great video compilation of our efforts to try and play mini golf in not too much of a ridiculous fashion (at which I at least failed miserably). For your amusement!

Update (February, 12th): unfortunately, the video compilation is not available anymore from now on.